Practice Makes Imperfect

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As embarrassing as it is for a Virgo like me to admit, I’m not perfect. Unlike the Quakers who are so good at the art of quilting that they purposely introduce a flaw in their quilts because, to paraphrase their thinking “only God is perfect”, all of the things I do are inherently full of flaws.

Perhaps they aren’t flaws others would ever notice. Even those who have similar perfectionist leanings as me. But I know that they are there, and knowing is merely the first step down what is a very slippery slope for me.

For many years, I struggled against my imperfections. At times it would even be more accurate to say that I raged against them.

There were even periods when I tried to not only achieve perfection in something that I was planning on doing, but to also be so perfect at it that I insisted on being able to do it perfectly on my first try.

The end result would be either an ego busting frustration at my (inevitable) failure to be perfect or a complete stagnation through a kind of deadlock from never being able to get started. It doesn’t help any that this is often construed as procrastination.

Yet to be imperfect is human. Fighting against it simply means that all I’m doing is fighting against myself. Logically, that means that since it’s a zero sum game, even if I pulled off the impossible and won I would also lose.

So what I try to do is practice being imperfect… or at least practice accepting it with a little more grace than I have in the past. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I’m sure I can be perfect doing it if I try hard enough. 😉